Rosenkranz vs. Rosenkranz also involves Kashi Ashram

Vero Beach Press Journal/February 14, 2001
By Jayne Hustead

Both sides came out fighting Tuesday during the first round of what
could be
a protracted marital and spiritual dispute between a member of the
Kashi
Ashram interfaith community in Roseland and her exiled husband who
wants to
expose the group as a cult and convince their son to leave it.

From one corner, 42-year-old Gina Rosenkranz, who wants $3,200 a month
in
temporary financial support while she and her husband, Richard
Rosenkranz,
duke out a divorce, took the first swing by telling Circuit Judge
William
Roby that Rosenkranz "takes care of me very minimally and himself much
more
grandly."

In the other corner, Rosenkranz, a human-rights activist, writer and
teacher
who long served as a spokesman for the Kashi community and its
spiritual
leader, Ma Jaya Bhagavati, testified he paid his wife $400 a month and
also
paid her credit card bill until she petitioned for support in December.
Her claim "is insupportable. It's not for her, anyway," he said at a
hearing
on the temporary support petition. "It's for Ma Jaya and that's
unconscionable."

Rosenkranz said many of the expenses on his wife's credit card are for
personal items for Bhagavati.
He also said he has found out things about the Kashi Ranch at 11155
Roseland
Road since he moved off it in July 1999 that include black magic, lies
and
two beatings five years ago of his 18-year-old son, Chun.

Rosenkranz said the beatings were at the direction of Bhagavati, who
was
trying to teach him a lesson.
"She ordered two top monks to dress up like the Mafia and beat him with
socks filled with stones," he said.
Now she has convinced him to stay at the ranch and defer college, he
said.
"There's something terrible going on there and exposing it may be the
only
way to get our son free of it," he said, adding, "I truthfully consider
(the
Kashi Ashram) a cult now."

Rosenkranz, who is self-employed and heads the Council for the
Interfaith
Call for Universal Religious Freedom and Freedom of Worship in Tibet,
was
banned in August from setting foot in the community.
In 1997, he inherited from his mother $1 million which she put in a
generation-skipping trust for Chun. Another $10,000 also is in trust
for
Chun, "but Ma has gotten him to sign a bogus piece of paper to get it
from
him," Rosenkranz said.
Rosenkranz also said his wife's financial affidavit, which claims she
spends
about $2,600 a month to live, is untrue. "One problem I have with the
community," he said, "is its leader has said it's OK to lie as long as
you
don't get caught."

Gina Rosenkranz lives in a house with 20 people, he said, and her
stated
expenses for cleaning, the telephone and such "are simply not true."
Rosenkranz claimed in court documents that he and his wife, who were
married
in 1981, have not had marital relations since 1982 and have not lived
together since 1992.
Gina Rosenkranz testified she has lived at the Kashi Ranch for 24 or 25
years and is a Sanyassin - "someone who dedicates his life to humanity
and
taking care of others."

Although it is the highest-ranking female position in the community and
similar to a monk, Sanyassins do not take a vow of poverty, Rosenkranz
said.
She also said she and Rosenkranz lived together as husband and wife
until
last October.
Roby is expected to rule on the petition for temporary support within a
week, said Vero Beach attorney Russell Petersen, who represents Gina
Rosenkranz.
Roby also ordered Rosenkranz to produce bank statements and other
financial
documents that had been requested within five days, which "we are happy
about," Petersen said. "Apparently the judge was pretty upset the
documents
hadn't been produced" earlier, he said.

In turn, Rosenkranz said Petersen "is asking for every financial
document he
can think of, much of which is irrelevant."
The documents are needed to move to the next step, which is division of
assets, Petersen noted.
Florida is a no-fault state, "so if he wants a divorce, there will be a
divorce," Petersen said.
"I was willing to support (Gina) for the rest of her life, but I'm not
going
to support Ma," Rosenkranz said.

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